how are these countries NOT super powers?

i think you guys are alomst on my idea of why the middle east isn’t a super power yet, despite their wealth. historically as well as most fields in political science will clearly point to the lack of democracy. not democracy in any firm sense of the word, but just a system which enables the citizen’s some form of exercising their right to self-determination.

  i'm NOT saying that elections just need to be established, or that a system of democracy like in sweden needs to be enforced, but simply giving the people some power would increase the nations' power. that's the first, and most important step. i think without this freedom, the nations are struggling as extreme groups battle it out for what little power there is available.

The other problem with their so called wealth is that if they tried to cash it all in at once it would be worth nothing cause the market would be flooded. So it’s only wealth while they trickle it out, and only while their trickling it out is at a high enough rate to make it economically impractical for the west to go for more inaccessible oil reserves. This means that whoile they may be termed “rich”, it is only in future earnings and no self respecting financier would put an advance loan on the untapped sum in case of a worldwide collapse of oil proce (if, for example,a new fuel technology came to light). We are talking centuries here after all.

Another reason I can think of is that their produce is just a raw material which is eventually sold on for a much greater profit.

Third rreason the oil is sold through Western companies that take the cream off the top so they’re the real money makers in the whole situation.

Fourth the money made from their riches fall in to the hands of the few that use it for personal pleasure rather than for progressing their nation state. Thus the nation as a whole stays poor apart from maintaining a certain level of pleasure for the rich/. Take, for example, the golf courses built in the middle of deserts. How crazy is that? Without investing the money made on their resources into the nation state, they cannot become a super power.

One last thing occured to me, the ‘power’ attached to advancedtechnology is not availablke to them because they are specifically denied it by those who do have it, the US, Britain, Europe, Israel, etc. Without establishing their own efficient education system, which cannot be done without investement in the state, the technological side cannot flourish thus they will always be two steps behind those that do have it.

They were all off the top of my head. To be utterly honest with u all, I think religion has got nothing at all to do with it because the rise of militant islam outside of Iran has only (seriously) happened in the last 10 years since the collapse of the USSR, so that cannot be the reason. They’ve had the riches since they became nation states at the end of ww2 don’t forget.

Oh, one last point, their independance probably came at a price, I bet if u dig you’ll find all oil contracts in the middle east were sorted out before they were released from Imperial shackles.

Democracy can’t have anything to do with it, because many of them were democratic nations for a time until they were over thrown, etc… I think you’re all looking in the wrong direction.

In response to Laws, the reason they wern’t flourishing pre-oil discoveries was because they hadn’t been a fore runner in the industrial revolution, it’s as simple as that. Though at one point they were the “super power” of the world, the fall of the ottoman empire & the rise of the british empire and then the industrial revolution within Britain meant that Britain became the super power while others, including the middle east, were left lagging behind. As far as I knw there was little national identity in the middle east post-ottoman epmire, pre-ww2 within the middle east. There were just a bunch of tribes. but I could be wrong as I’m just remembering that off the top of my head and my memory is notoriously unreliable. This meant that they couldn’t establish any kind of industrial revolution within the middle east as there was no centralized goivernment to encourage such a thing until the Europeans came over and just took over. So that’s the reason why they’re not a super power, or why the Romans aren’t, or the British aren’t. They were at one point in time top of the pack but fell.

Hmm, I realise now that I’m disagreeing with all of you, hope my post is ok and not rude as I’m a little sozzled (drunk).

And if it is rude you can take a little pleasure from the fact i quite obviously diond’t get lucky tonight or I wouldn’t be reading ILP

That’s funny, I always read ILP after sex. I just figured you weren’t much for stamina

lol, cheeky bastard, if you wern’t the other side of the world I’d give you a punch in the arm!

I shall refrain from commenting on my own sexual prowess.

I must say, however, that that’s a new idea to me, instead of rolling over to go to sleep you get up and read ILP. I wonder if that goes down any better.

Given the current US aministration, some of your points are laughable - not to mention arrogant and unsubstantiated.

I find myself agreeing with you sedm1000, now there’s something you don’t see everyday!

It may be in principle the idea that the US sticks to, but the support for Israel can only have been born out of religious motivations, so I think we can take sedm1000’s point even further and say the US has always made decisions based on religious priciples, not just this administration.

/falls off chair, bangs head, revises personal belief system…

You could go so far as to describe the US as a fundamentalist religious country.

You’re all so wrong, so misguided, thinking in sub-structures. I’ll give you the truth tomorrow.

Well, before you judge what I have to say, allow me to rephrase what I said, if that makes any sense.

Understand I am very well aware of what kind of decisions the government makes from religion. I should have been more focused on the civilians and the majority of the public rather than governmental powers.
I really think that this country is made great in it’s religious state because of it’s people. If it wasn’t for us having all the great ideals that we hold to ourselves our country would be getting much worse than it is now-that’s not to say it could use some improvements that are definitley noticable.

On the scale, I think we all can reason together that America is definitley the most religiously free country in the world. Of course, the definition of “religious freedom” may be a little differently defined by most people.
Most extremists are still in a religious mind set, even if they beleive in suicide.

To better understand what I am saying, listen to this from dictionary.com, the definition of religion:

1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

a. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

b. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.

2. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a piritual leader.

3. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Obviously many extremists are still being religious even in their mass suicides. This is why my belief in God ISN’T a religious one. In fact, the way to understand where WE as humans are in God’s creation is to look at God without the eyes of religion, as a being who created us in his own image and has much mercy upon us, if we follow the right path; not a religious one.

America has to use the name of religion because of it’s fundamental beliefs. If the government did away with the ideas of what our country was founded on, people would revile against it, it would lack any uniqueness thereof and would be rendered as yet another power that gave up too quickly, regardless of a democracy.

Without a mindset of the best intent, the idea of democracy is one of foolishness.

see http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=138716. and it’s not sure the middle east would have been a superpower and at least not in the american/western/a negative sense if it had been allowed to develop freely…

Ok, so what you meant to say was that America cannot escape its foundation - that American policy is inherently religious? This seems to nullify you original point

This speculating without knowledge is like musicology without music. Why on earth are any of you even engaging with the idea of the ‘middle-East’ as a superpower? Either you are define such a political entity as a geographical bloc sharing an abundant economic resource, or you’ve simply bought into the American mass media’s implicit portrayal of Arabs as a singular union of primitive existence. Examining disputing debating the political legitimacy of Islam as a body of law or Allah as a source of soveriegnty in a political system may reveal to an extent the reason why Arab states do not operate efficiently in maximising the economic output of all its citizens, but then again, the stated ideals of Arab constutions are not geared towards economic growth and material prosperity.

Arab society is marked by tribalism, a clan system that determines its leaders through a bargaining process which ensures that rival factions’ interests’ are upheld before the leader is chosen, as opposed to afterwards as with conventional political rule (in the healthier liberal democracies). This explains why leaders like Yasser Arafat managed to stay in power for so long, despite a poor record in power. Democratic instutions (as we know them in the west) are only successful when the ‘nation’ of people it is representing is coherent and cohesive. When not, the country either plunges into civil war (as with the American civil war) or maintains order by coercion and fear (as with Saddam Hussein). The US political system works now through a comprimise federal system, where most power is concentrated at state level, but federal government ensures control over foreign defence security and currency policies, whilst fostering a distinct national identity through industrial media alliances to avert destablising internal independence movements. (Something done so successfully in the USA, it is barely on the political agenda any more - note Quebec in Canada)

The arbitrary borders and ‘nation-states’ drawn up by the French and British in the Middle-East after world war 1 are evidently not nation-states born out of a social movement on the ground. We can see this with the widespread looting and mass anarchy that accompanied the power vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This exposed the underlying fragmented form of ‘Iraqi’ society. Shi’ites and Sunni Muslims and groups within groups, all with a scores to settle with each other. A nation without a nation state in the form of the Kurds, stradling across the Iraqi, Iranian Syrian and Turkish borders.

Ironically, given some of the inferences posted in this thread, it was in fact the discover of the ‘gold under the ground’ after world war 2, that plunged the region into a deeper awareness of tribal differences. Whilst the nations did not fit the nation states, those prescribed by the west after ww1 were becoming more cohesive, and on the way to achieving a peaceful cohabitation. With the distribution of unknown oil reserves seemingly unaware of the geographical distribution of the Middle-East’s different ethnic and religious groupings, the distribution of oil revenues was bound to cause aggitation between the winning and losing groups. The wholesale political mismanagement of this find added to the imperial interventions - both corporate and military - within the context of the Cold War, and you have an embittered and tense environment where old clan rivalries suddenly matter again. In such an environment, it is almost inevitable that Islam would take a bashing, with Koranic law being interpreted to be stricter in keeping civil order and justifying a tribal hierarchy. With each injustice follows a resentment, and the concept of these large countries operating right at the top of the international order is thrown away as inefficient political systems fail to generate economic growth, as all politics and all economics revolves around one resource - oil.

Despite what should rightly be described as a period of political regression in much of the Arab world, Arab nations have been able to form OPEC (oil producing and exporting countries), an international cartel of oil producing countries which set production quotas to as to achieve equilibrium of supply and demand in naturally elastic world oil markets, given the great share of known oil reserves in the world. A rare but crucial source of Arab solidarity, you might say, artifically maintaining oil prices at a higher rate so as to guarantee a steady revenue from their main economic asset. This system, though varying in success, has ensured that western oil producers have stayed in the market by not undercutting their (higher) prices per barrel. If this all seems too technical, I definitely recommend the OPEC website opec.org

It is a tacit truth, that the USA wants to undermine OPEC and ultimately remove it from the global oil market, viewing its maintenance of unwanted regimes as a hindrance to their economic political and strategic interests and ambitions. They recently asked Nigeria to leave OPEC, and are taking a hands-on approach to the formation of a new regime in Iraq to inrease the likelihood that Iraq (with the world’s second largest known oil reserves) will not be subject to OPEC quotas. Is it in US interests (in the broadest sense-let alone global interests) to upset this stabilising factor in the global oil markets? I will return on that question.

The truth of the matter is, that both the USA and the USSR would have certainly invade many Middle-Eastern countries had they not been so reliant on them for cheap oil which effectively ensured that fuel costs were low. Both Russia and the USA still rely heavily on Middle-Eastern oil, though alternative reserves are being declared ‘tappable’ at an increasing rate (Northern Canada, Russia) Now that the Cold War is over, and the political excuse exists (Saddam’s tyrany and weapons of mass destruction) and a US administration with the will to bypass and undermine the multilateral world governance (confident of the military and economic might to stomach it), it was almost inevitable that regimes in the Arab world have to either pursue a programme of serious political reform and compliance with American demands, or be toppled. The USA would happily do just that to Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even the Palestinian leadership, if they could tolerate the political (and ulitimately economic) damage, which they can’t. The Iraq war was a demonstration to all non-compliant Arab regimes of what the consequences can be, and the ease with which their regimes can be toppled. Realistically, it is only likely to stir further resentment, manifest in a more militarised and socially stifling Islam, than any fear-induced compliance intended. This is not the behaviour of a superpower, but undoubtedly that of a hyperpower, the only truly global power on earth. Bush’s regime will shamelessly punish long-standing allies who will not toe the line. It is not a world I personally want to live in. For all his charm and economic ineptitude, don’t make the same mistake again. Vote Democrats.

Some of these themes were debated quite well in the below link which explored the truth behind the ‘oil’ incentive for going to war. An adapted version of my first post appeared in Porspect magazine, though I have since watered down the ‘postscript to the Cold War’ analysis: ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=138731

Pangloss;

i think that it is important to look at facts without attempting to skew them to flatter personal ideologies. once this approach is taken to this particular issue, i’m sure that you will see that democracy is the only way for the middle east to have a higher degree of political clout.

first, to the charge that this topic raises a problem because it plays upon the:

although i do think that there is a western view held that all islam conforms to the same belief system, the topic of this discussion is how are these countries not superpowers? note the plural usage and perhaps you can see that we are not viewing the middle east as a singluar soceity.

Pangloss’ comments on democracy are proven incorrect by empirical evidence.

the only way for countries to function as a nation is thorugh the institution of democracy. the american civil war was not over two different peoples fighting (they were both american) but over ideologies. saddam hussein’s iraq was not a democracy, so i don’t know why you used that example. but nations that install demoracic institutions like constitutions, seperation of powers and the principle of subsiduarity will not only protect and smooth over cleavages in the society, but they will also strengthen the nation. india, canada, switzerland, america, belgium and countless other countries prove this and all the multinational countries that have been torn apart lack these basic requirements. democracy does not mean strictly freedom for a nation, but it ensures individual liberty to all people in the nation.

i truthfully have little interest in debating the merits and drawbacks of OPEC but i will mention two basic points that are lacking in your anaylsis. first, as a free market, capitalist society of course it is in the america’s basic ideology to undermine large scale oligopolies. further, the inherient mechanism of cheating is built into all cartles, even OPEC, and this is the cause for its failings. i’m not interested in going over my economics lectures but encourage a look at the basic economic models and mathematics behind cartels.

the middle east needs to be secularized and the countries need to protect everyone’s right to individual liberty. these are only done through democracy.
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Thanks for your reply, Trix.

I think there were a couple of areas where I was not as clear as I would have meant. The main bulk of my post was not my description of what ought to be the case in the Middle-East. It was merely trying to provide an overview, a suitable context in which to provide a response to the original question could be made.

‘democracy is the only way for the middle east to have a higher degree of political clout’

I agree that on the international agenda, now almost entirely set by the United States, democratic states, by right and as a trend, hold greater ‘political clout’, though this clout is directly related to the conomic and military power of that state. I would not confuse political weight with democratic legitimacy on the international stage. For most of the last century, the only political power that could assume the title of ‘superpower’ was the USSR. China, despite an aspiring youth and greater economic rights, is not a democracy, yet is generally expected to rival the USA’s economic dominance over the next 20-30 years, assuming the Chinese continues to grow at the same rate as the last ten years.

The political clout is not, however, determined directly by the level of democratic legitimacy that state holds. The current US government favours democratic regimes, many of which ignore their public distaste for compliance with the US. Many long-standing ‘democratic’ allies of the US are now seeing a backlash in public opinion against support for many US policies, on the simple grounds that it will adversely affect their own quality of life. Both Turkey and South Korea have seen public opposition to US foreign policy excersions. To label a regime as ‘democratic’ is not to give it an automatic rubber stamp as regards its democratic credentials.

I did indeed note the plural use of the word countries. I was addressing the question in terms of ‘Middle-East’ and ‘superpower’ meaning what I have long assumed them to represent. The question provoked a relevant reference to Arab unity and tribalism in the region that I felt was a kind of golden thread that could be used to explain the civic mentality of Arab societies.

The reference to the American civil war seemingly confirmed my point. For two peoples to fight over a matter of ideology does not refute the argument that a lack of social cohesion, a shared story, was enough for over 600,000 people to die over it. You can describe both the Union and Condfederates as both American, in much the same way as you can describe Iraqi Shi-ites and Iraqi Sunni Muslims as ultimately Iraqi. You are certainly right to refer to federal systems, as examples of regional peoples living under a shared central authority. This has always been, and hopefully will be, the plan for Iraq.

It’s a shame you are not willing to explore the role OPEC play in the themes being discussed. The fact that a steady oil supply is crucial to industrialised economies, makes the importance of price stability that much greater. The natural price elasticticy of oil markets makes a cartel like OPEC a necessity to ensure oil prices do not rise and fall sharply so 1) low prices do not undercut the the many Western oil suppliers whose higher extraction costs demand a higher global oil price 2) OPEC members can guarantee a steady revenue (particularly important in LEDCs)

OPEC, by acting as a cartel, can adjust oil output to ensure a balance between supply and demand. The free market in the world oil industry would see those countries with the largest reserves (i.e. OPEC) maximise their revenue by supplying limitlessly and undercutting all other oil-producers. Fuel-dependent industries would be in dire straits without at least one cartel regulating the world oil output. The role of Saudi Arabia as OPEC’s ‘swing producer’ has been crucial during the Iraq war. The US government were confident enough of OPEC’s reliability to maintain world oil supplies and protect against an oil price fluctuation that would damage the fragile US economy. To the extent that, unlike during the first Gulf War, US emergency oil reserves were not brought into use.

“Democracies” like the USA are built on illusions or paradigms and are themselves thus paradigms/illusions. People may buy into it, but that doesn’t mean they are democratic “citizens”. Certain paradigms were included in the deal, one of them through accepting it being equalled to being part of a democracy. The institutions themselves are built upon paradigms. So these “democracies” are only ways of establishing “order” or the prevalence of an illusionary system in people’s minds and in this sense do not differ from former kingdoms. The truth is, however, that this “order” never reaches any final conclusion (as the kingdoms and “democracies” show) and ultimately results in “disorder” which in reality is the opportunity to get more in touch with how reality really is.

When it comes to the Middle East, it becomes difficult to create any sense of “order” through implementing false thought systems that have been developed in conditions highly specific for the West. This is because there hasn’t been “democracy” there in the past. I heard on the radio that the USA has tried to do such implementations 13 times and only “succeeded” twice, in Japan and in Germany. I don’t know if the thought-systems to be found in Iraq and Afghanistan have the combined character required to welcome the implementation the USA now wants.

False thought-systems are maintained through “expansion/distraction”. People must be kept in the “cages”. “Appearance is everything”. It’s not strange that “Saddam Hussein” lost support. It would be the same if the USA stopped “expanding”. Then the weaknesses of the system/lack of correspondence with reality would go from subconsciousness to consciousness and make people “stop” buy into the system, which they in truth never really did. The USA and other “democracies” are only a question of accepting a lack of correspondence between reality and the various functions assigned to for example institutions on a subconscious level, although maybe not realising that “consciously”.

A true democracy wouldn’t oppress true consciousness. It’s the oppression of true conscioucness/independence from artificial thought systems that is the key to why all false thought systems/empires collapse. As it happens, they have tended to be replaced by “other” false thought systems, because there appears a vacuum that people who haven’t got out of the false consciousness mode unfortunately fill. However, sooner or later true consciousness will prevail, since it can’t be erased, in contrast to the thought systems that aren’t in touch with reality/often have their “origin” in written stuff.

False thought systems are put against each other in addition to how it really is. The West has been and thus is a hindrance to the false thought systems of the Middle East. The latter have experienced a decline, but let’s say the West hadn’t interferred. It could then very well have been the other way around. In the long run, of course, we all have a common goal, the prevalence of true consciousness. But I’m afraid it won’t help the way Bush & co. have acted. But, of course, they couldn’t have acted any differently, since their actions prove a prevalence of false consciousness. And, ultimately, a universal expansion of the dominant false thought system may lead directly to true consciousness, since when it collapses; what is there to replace other than… ? But hopefully, it won’t take that long time. And meanwhile, it is a consolidation that the disorder of false thought systems sooner or later will be replaced by prevalence of true consciousness.

pangloss, it’s been enjoyable to discuss this topic with another person who has a similar appreciation for voltaire. here are some of my comments to your last post on points that i still see as major tensions in your arguements.

first, your position on the middle east as super powers. you do profess that they seemingly display such unity and cohersion, and the region is comparable to america during the civil war. this definetly is a different arguement that i interpertepted on you last post. the position that major ethnic and religious cleavages in the middle east are simply a difference of ideology needs justification. the difference between a southern rebel during the civil war and an iraqi shi’ite now is that the southerner wanted the present secular state to adopt different internal policies. the iraqi shi’ites want a different theological state than the sunni’s. this problem, i think we have both agreed, is solved through institutions like federalism.

no? why not? the soviet union during the cold war got most of its power from the vilianization of the nation from america – not the democratic source. china’s power is limited today, but still present, because of the large degree of economic freedom buisnesses in the country have – a uniquely democratic quality. the recent war in iraq, i think, was a display of the power that democracies have over all other countries. while the u.s. did flaunt the approval of some minor, non-democrtic states, it was the democratic countries’ support or disapproval that made the biggest impact.

i am unwilling to debate the economic pitfalls of cartels that OPEC is now facing – any economic textbook will cover this. i think the power of OPEC in the region is undeniable, and i think that this power further blocks a true democracy from developing. the missed experience of feudalism, that usually triggers a development to democracy, prepentually leaves the middle eastern countries run only by an elite few.

democracy does not, and i think this is the second time i’ve said this, mean a replacement of one political system in a particular country in another region. it is a process – not a rubber stamp. democracy happens when a country’s government and citizens pledge to adhere to and strive for basic democratic values; which is, most basically, the assurance of individual liberity.

This useful link confirms many of the trends I was identifying, as well as exploring further the past outcomes of oil ‘finds’ on developing countries.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3013967.stm

I do have so much more to say but only have time to post these comments.

Economic freedom does not equal democracy in any sense of the word. Little or no restrictions on an economic system can operate even though personal liberties are restricted or non-existent, and the political system can be tyrannical or democratic.

What you seem to be saying is that if you’re not a socialist who restricts economic freedom, you’re a democrat who doesn’t. This is not true, after all there are democracies which do limit economic freedoms, usually termed social democracies (take virtually any democracy in the EU). While it may become unintelligble to call the Chinese communists as they relax economic constraints this doesn’t mean they become democrats.

The reason it was the democratic states that made a difference is because they are the ones that are presently powerful. It is not being a democracy that makes the powerful but because of their economic and political influence, which is not derivible from their democratic structure. For example the democratic country Luxembourg has the clout of a wet lettuce leaf, hence being a democracy gives no power.

Pangloss, what your link and posts put across was the direction I was trying to adopt, but unfortunatly didn’t explain myself at all. I pretty much agree with your position on the whole thing.

pangloss, the article that you linked me too seems only to agree with my point that i have been arguing for a while now. democracy needs to be implemented in the region. oil one of the main culpruits for this not to happen. here’s an article to a book that does a decent job of describing this, but i would recommend fareed zakaria’s book over this:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0508/p18s01-bogn.html

you’re original position seemed to be along the lines of, the middle east is actually a very powerful community if it were not for several tatics by the united states to repress the region. this claim still seems absurb to me, but please forgive me if i have misinterperted you.

matt, no economic freedom does not equal democracy that why i stated that it is an aspect of democracy. besides, it could be argued that welfare states or social democracies, provide greater economic freedom to citizens then free market societies. the point is that state controlled resourses, that is, when an elite few are the only ones running the country through the control of all revenues, individual liberty is restricted.

what do you think got them that power? pangloss raised the same objection but didn’t answer me. democratic luxemburg still holds more political weight than the republic of congo, pakistan, or columbia. the reason – its citizens would not likely approve of measures that would isolate the country from the international stage. non-democratic countries act in the rulers best interest; democratic countries act in the nation’s best interest, and it is always in a country’s interest to have power.